More from Glenn Tieman May 2010 part 1
It wasn't easy to get permission to sail to the outer islands of Kiribati. Immigration blocked the process until I complained to the Ministry of Tourism. It's a similar situation in Tuvalu so it isn't surprising that I saw only one other yacht in Kiribati during the four months I was there.
I did eventually get to spend three months at two different remote villages and found the hospitality and friendliness there to be just wonderful. At the first village I was given more food than I could eat; tuna and flying fish, breadfruit, swamp taro, coconuts, bananas, lemons, edible leaves, palm syrup, etc. I dried enough bananas and fish to last for months.
This was a spectacular place for snorkeling on the ocean's edge and I had the fortune to swim with dolphins for the first time ever. The little kids would yell my name from the beach in the evening until their little voices were hoarse and cracking.
At the second village I was invited right into a home both eating and sleeping with the family. The extended family slept all together in one room which was mostly without walls, wide open but for the roof. There was though some separation between nuclear families due to sleeping in different mosquito nets. There were several days of meetings of the "old men" of the island which included entertainment evenings mostly dancing performances and public dancing. The women were so hospitable as to keep me dancing until I was exhausted.
...the strange foolish vanity of the camp, which said, "beyond our light and our order there is nothing," turning their faces always inward toward the sinking fire of illuminating consciousness...
DH Lawrence - The Rainbow
I did eventually get to spend three months at two different remote villages and found the hospitality and friendliness there to be just wonderful. At the first village I was given more food than I could eat; tuna and flying fish, breadfruit, swamp taro, coconuts, bananas, lemons, edible leaves, palm syrup, etc. I dried enough bananas and fish to last for months.
This was a spectacular place for snorkeling on the ocean's edge and I had the fortune to swim with dolphins for the first time ever. The little kids would yell my name from the beach in the evening until their little voices were hoarse and cracking. At the second village I was invited right into a home both eating and sleeping with the family. The extended family slept all together in one room which was mostly without walls, wide open but for the roof. There was though some separation between nuclear families due to sleeping in different mosquito nets. There were several days of meetings of the "old men" of the island which included entertainment evenings mostly dancing performances and public dancing. The women were so hospitable as to keep me dancing until I was exhausted.
...the strange foolish vanity of the camp, which said, "beyond our light and our order there is nothing," turning their faces always inward toward the sinking fire of illuminating consciousness...
DH Lawrence - The Rainbow